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How Beyoncé Keeps the Internet Obsessed With Her
The singer's social media presence combines faux intimacy and calculated messages that make events out of her most normal moments.
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Folk Music Isn't What It Used to Be—and That's More Than Okay
The Newport Folk Festival, held last weekend in Rhode Island, keeps traditions alive while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of what "folk" means as a genre.
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Why Is a Music Genre Called 'Americana' So Overwhelmingly White and Male?
The genre seeks to represent and celebrate a national identity, but in the process, it erases the history and diversity of its influences.
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Johnny Cash's Biggest Hit Song Was About Falling in Love With Johnny Cash
Fifty years later, "Ring of Fire" remains a classic—not because it sounds timeless, but because it embodies Cash's romance with his wife June Carter Cash.
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Barry Sweet / AP The 'Vicious Competition for Credit' Over Launching Madonna's Career
Reggie Lucas worked in the studio with Madonna as she recorded her self-titled album, which turns 30 this week. But he says he hasn't gotten his full due.
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What the Backstreet Boys Could Learn From K-Pop
Korea's longest-running boy band, Shinhwa, proves that staying relevant isn't about pretending you're young. It's about embracing your age.
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The Songs Otis Redding Could Have Sung
A new singles collection highlights the staggering fact that one of the greatest singers ever likely died not in his prime, but before it.
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Jay-Z Joins To-Day and Ice-Cream in the Hyphen Graveyard
'About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.'
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Thom Yorke's Spotify Protest: Annoying, Not That Effective, and Still Important
By ditching the popular streaming service, the Radiohead singer and Nigel Godrich inconvenience fans. But that could help lead to needed change in the music industry.
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Happiness Is a Paul McCartney Concert in Summertime
On the pure joy and infectious empathy of Macca at Fenway Park on Tuesday night
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Big Star: 'The Greatest Band You've Never Heard,' Now on Film
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me aims to spread the gospel of an underdog band -- and to memorialize its underdog founder -- while also celebrating its underdog status.
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Pixies: Just the Latest Rockers to Make Violence Against Women Look Cool
The "Bagboy" video puts a "lighthearted" spin on a few ugly cultural tropes—but gets a pass from controversy because of the song's genre.
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The 6 Things I Needed to Appreciate Yeezus
A hater's guide.
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Eye to Eye: Taher Shah, Unlikely Overnight Pop Sensation
Celebrating the overdue arrival of this summer's unrepentantly vapid icon
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The World's Biggest Bands Are British and Its Biggest Solo Artists Are American
What's the deal with that?
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Arab Rappers Are Landing in Jail for Lyrics—Kind of Like American Rappers
No nation has a richer history of prosecuting hip hop than the genre's birth country does.
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Zombie Skin: 'I Wrote It About Zombies'
The most adorable scream-punk children yet
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Track of the Day: 'Byegone'
Listen up...
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Track of the Day: 'It All Feels Right'
Listen up...
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Bobby Bland Was 'Two Steps From the Blues'—and Ahead of Everyone Else
The extraordinary songs of the singer who died Sunday at age 83 offer reminders of how complex the blues can be, and how shockingly new it once was.
